The Iola register., 1887-01-14
THE GREAT DISTRIBUTION. IN
Sermon BY Rev. 7. De Witt Tai
mage. D. d.


UnGAl1en-Elnal Rewarda.
BRooKLYN. n. T., Jan. 0.-"D Distribution
ef Rewards was the subject Of DR.. Tall
mage's sermon this morning. He chose
TOR his text part Of the twelfth verse Of
the hfty-third chapter Of Isaiah: " He
shall divide the spoil with the strong"
Following Is the sermon:
My family, who saw Il with their eyes
year before last, tell me that in the Col
iseum at Rome. where prosecutors used to
let out half-ssarved lions to eat up Chris
tians, there il now planted the figure Of
cross. And I rejoice TO know that the up
right piece Of wood nailed to . transverse
piece has become the symbol, not more Of
suffering than Of victory. It is Of Christ
the ConQueror that my text speaks. As
q kingly warrior, having subdued an en-
pire, might divide the palaces, and man
sions, and cities, and valleys, and mount
aims, among his officers, so Christ is going
to divide up all the earth and all the
heavens among His people, and you and I
will have to take our share il we are
strong in faith and strong in our Christian
loyalty, for my text declares 1t: q" He shall
divide the spoil with the strong"
The capture Of this round planet for
Christ is not so much Of a job as you might
imagine, when the church takes of its coat
and rolls up its sleeves for the work,
as it will There are 12,O0O, ,00O,0OO pco-
pie now in the world, and there
are 45O,OOO,O00 Christians. Subtract the
AZ, 100000 who are Christians from
the 12,OOOOOO,OO0 and there are 1850
OOO, COO left to be Christianized. Now divide
the Il, ,55O, ,OOO, 900 by the 45O, COX, 900 already
Christianized, and it makes only twenty
five people for each Christian to bring to
Christ. Surely, when the church gets
wide awake, no Christian will be content
to take to Heaven less than twenty-five.
Why, hope to take with me at least 1O,-
OOO. know evangelists that have already
gathered 5000 each for the kingdom. There
are at least 100000 men in Christendom
whose one business it is to save souls. So
that when tell you all that we need to
average is twenty-five souls reaped for
God in lifetime, all idea Of impossibility
vanishes from this omnipotent crusade.
know Of a Sabbath-schOol teacher who
has spent her lifetime in teaching the
young, and she has had five different
classes during all these years, and she tells
me they averaged about seven in a class,
and they were all converted, and five times
seven are thirty-five, as near as can cal-
culate She brought her twenty-five, and
had ten to spare My grandmother
brought her whole family into the king
dom, and her grandchildren, and, l hope,
all her great-grandchildren, for God re-
members q prayer seventy. five years old
as well as though it were a minute; and
she took her twenty-five into the kingdom
and had at least one hundred to spare. Be-
sides that, the telegraph and the telephone
will, within o few years, put the whole
earth into compass Of ten minutes. Con-
slider this, and also that Omnipotence.
Omniscience and Omnipresence preside
over all the work Of betterment, and you
will take this enterprise Of the worlds re-
demption out of the impossibi.ities into the
possibilities, and then out of the possibili-
ties into the probabilities, and then out Of
the probabilities into the certaintles. The
building of the Union Pacific railroad from
ocean to ocean was greater undertaking
than the girdling of the earth with tho
Gospel, for the ono enterprise depended
upon the human arm while the other de.
pends upon Almi2htiness.
Do I really mean all the earth will sur.
render to Christi Yes. How about the
uninviting portionsl Will Greenland be
evangelical! The possibility IS that after
q few more hundred brave lives are dashed
out among the icebergs, that great refrig-
orator, the Polar region, will be given up
to the walrus and the bear, and the inhab-
itants will come down by invitation into
tolerable climates, or those climates may
soften, and, as it has been positively DEM
onstrated that the Arctic region was once
blooming garden and q fruitful field,
those regions may change climate and
again be q blooming garden and q fruitful
field. It is proved beyond controversy by
German and American scientists that the
Arctic regions were the first portions Of
this world inhabita6le; the world hot be-
yond human endurance, those regions
were of course the first to ba cool enough
for human foot and human lung. It IS
positively proved that that Arctic region
was tropical climate.
Prof Heer, Of Zurich, says the remains
Of flowers have been found In the Arctic,
showing it was like Mexico for climate,
and it Is found that the Arctic is the moth
er region from which all the flowers de-
scended. Prof. Wallace says the remains
Of all styles Of animal life are found in the
Arctic. including those animals that can
live only in warm climates. Now that
Arctic region which has been demonstrate
ed by fora and fauna and geographical ar
gument to have been as full Of vegetation
and lifo as our Florida, may be turned
back to its original bloom and glory, or it
will be shut up as o museum of crystals for
cur;Osity-seekers once in awhile to visit.
But Arctic and Antarctic in some shape
will belong to the Kedeemer's realm.
What about other unproductive or re-
pulsive regionsl All the deserts will be ir-
rigated. tho waters will be forced up to tho
great American desert between here and
the Pacific by machinery now known or yet
to be invented, and, as great Salt Lake
City has no rain and could not raise an
apple or a bushel of wheat in one hundred
years without artificial help, but is now
through such means one great garden, so
ell the unproductive parts Of all the conti-
nents will be turned into harvest fields and
orchards. A half-dozen De Lesseps will
furnish the world with all the canals
needed, and will change the course Of rivers
and open new lakes, and the great Sahara
desert will be cut up into farms with an
astounding yield Of bushels to the acre.
The marsh will be drained Of its waters
and cured Of its malaria
saw the other day what was for many
years called the Black Swamp Of Ohio, its
chief crop chiils and fevers, but now, by
the tiles put in the ground to carry of tho
surplus moisture, Transformed into the
richest and healthiest regions. The God
who wastes nothing, think, means that
this world, from pole to pole, has come to
perfection Of foliage and fruitage. For that
reason He keeps u running through space,
though 50 many fires are blazing down in